Plenary speaker

Biography

In 1989, he obtained a doctoral degree in research on a SOFC from Tokyo Institute of Technology. He moved to the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Gunma University in 1990. He became a full professor at Gunma University in 2005 and continues to this day. His current research interests are technologies related to high performance DMFCs and PEMFCs, including development of new electrode catalysts and electrolyte membranes. He has published more then 170 international journal articles so far. He is a chairman of Division of Energy Engineering, the Society of Chemical Engineering of Japan.

Speech details

MORPHOLOGY AND STRUCTURE OF THE CATALYST AND CATALYST LAYER FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE DMFCS

Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) has attracted a great deal of attention as promising power source for clean and renewable energy applications, due to its high energy density, efficiency and low emissions. However, several challenges still hinder DMFC commercialization, including low performance, high cost and insufficient durability. With respect to the performance improvement, development of breakthrough catalyst has been actively investigated by many researchers applying composites of Pt-based catalyst with nano-sized co-catalysts and 1D or 2D nano-carbon as catalyst support. In those studies, the mass activity on the basis of mass of the precious metal is generally used as an evaluation index of the catalyst.

In case of DMFC, it is necessary to apply a relatively large amount of catalyst to the MEA compare to that of the hydrogen fuel cell. This means the thickness of the catalyst layer increase, suggesting that the structure of the catalyst layer becomes critical for the fuel cell performance relating to the distribution of active reaction site, the mass and ion transport resistances. Therefore, in order to realize a high-performance DMFC, the macro and micro-structures of the catalyst layer are important. It is effective to make the active reaction sites as dense as possible on the surface of the electrolyte membrane, but in terms of mass transfer resistance, a certain volume of pores is necessary. It is a trade-off relationship, so it is not a simple matter. In particular, for fine particle catalysts in the shape of 1D or 2D, not only the activity of the catalyst itself but also the evaluation as a catalyst layer is indispensable.

Based on the previous studies on the structure of catalyst layer of DMFC including the authors works, structure for the highly active catalyst layer and the catalyst for that purpose will be considered.